This invention relates generally to database management and, more particularly, relates to an improved method for creating and searching data files in a database.
In the prior art, commercial databases are well known. Commercial databases are general tools created for a wide variety of activities such as, for example, performing arbitrary complex queries on data, on-line transaction updates, on-line information retrieval, batch report generation, database schema creation, database schema modification, table indexing, and data integrity. Typically, all of these activities occur for multiple simultaneous users.
The performance of the above described activities in currently implemented databases typically rely on the following philosophies:
(a) Information stored in a database is often times stored in human-readable format;
(b) To minimize disk space, key data is only stored once;
(c) The database is designed for an overall acceptable performance level for all activities, e.g., queries, updates, adds and deletes; and
(d) Index tables into the database rely on the entire content of a key field. Unfortunately, the use of these philosophies in database management does have serious drawbacks. For example, formatting data in human-readable form increases the time it takes a computer to perform a search. Furthermore, when a commercial database is updating, modifying, or deleting records, it has considerable overhead in maintaining up-to-date indexes of table integrity. Still further, the search of key fields is performed linearly requiring that an excess number of records be examined.
Additional problems have also been recognized in commercially known databases. In this regard, most commercially known databases are large and cumbersome. Furthermore, enterprise licenses and system administrators for such commercially known databases are expensive. In addition, while these databases are powerful, they cannot always be tuned or modified to produce the best overall performance for what otherwise is a simple task that needs to be performed over and over. Many of these systems also utilize data files that are organized in a manner that makes them difficult to transform to other platforms.
From the foregoing, it is evident that a need exists for an improved system and method for storing and retrieving data in a database.